Blog Post 9

An Open Letter To Educators

What a very interesting post. This post is something that we have all been talking about this semester and something that I think Dr. Strange has been wanting us to know. I know that most of us have had those teachers who just talk about the subject and make you memorize facts and that's it. Is this what we really NEED to be learning? If it isn't, then how do we change it?

I commented on this post and the main thing I talked about was the whole reason everyone goes to school......to make money. This is why we learn the facts that don't really help anybody and facts that really have nothing to do with anything we want to know. What would happen if we had the attitude: I want to get a job because I have a purpose in life to make a difference. Or maybe with the attitude that we want to accomplish something to improve ourselves. With this attitude, we go to school and we get these facts that we don't want and we wonder what in the world is this? How is this going to help me get a job? In a lot of cases, the facts pay off and we get the job. So now we have a job that took about 4 years to accomplish. Now what? We go through the motions of work and everything is the same everyday.

We can make education better by one way. We have to change. We have to change our attitude of work, our attitude of what it means to have a job, and our attitude about education. I was raised in a home life that really showed me how your attitude dictated everything you were told to do and everything you wanted to do. So the reason I say we should change our attitude of a job is because so many people in this world do not have jobs and would do anything to have one.

All this change starts with us, the educational guides. Like Dr. Strange says, teacher is not always the best word. Thinking back at all the videos we have watch, one thing keeps coming back to my mine. This is that we are teaching these students and preparing them for jobs that haven't even be invented yet! That is so amazing to me because I am responsible for getting these students ready for something that is years ahead of what they are learning. So how can I get this information in to their heads? Should I give them a load of facts and say "Memorize this for your test tommorrow"?

I know this is a very broad subject and isn't going to be easy. I know that it probably is as significant as I may see it, but think about what would happen if more "educational guides" used new tools and tried to make their job worth it. What would happen to those students? How much better off would they be?

Here is my comment:Hi there, I am from Dr. Strange’s EDM 310 class. I want to talk about why we go to get a degree in the first place. It’s because we want to get a job and make money. I really think that this is an important post to everyone considering a degree and what it really means to get a job. It all boils down to what you are good at, and what your interviewer thinks about your resume. So many people go through school thinking about getting the job and not thinking about if they are learning what they need to learn to get that job. I have been in that situation, and since a have started read post like this one I have found that everything that I have been taught may not be good enough. I may not be as successful as my interviewer thought I should be because my resume showed that I could do so much more with the education I have. So, many jobs are lost everyday that I don’t think we should take our learning for granted. When I apply for a job, many employers will be skeptical to who they hire. I can’t just go through the motions of learning anymore. We need to be more serious in what we want to accomplish.

ALEX-Alabama Learning Exchange

ALEX is a website for all teachers to explore and find things for their classroom. ALEX stands for Alabama learning Exchange. This is a place where teachers from Alabama can log in and create lessons and publish them in the lesson plan library. This is also a good place to search for new ways to teach your students and find new ideas.

The ALEX website includes several different options at the beginning. There are 8 different links on the home page: Course of Study, Web Links, Lesson Plans, Search, Personal Workspace, Professional Learning, Podcast Treasury, and ALEXville. The Course of Study link shows the Alabama courses of study for all grades and all subjects. The Web links are a place to find different websites that will help with the courses of study. Lesson Plans are great lesson plans for different grades and all subjects. The Search link lets you search within the ALEX database for lessons and resources. The personal workspace is where you log in your account with ALEX. The professional learning link is where you can use useful tools to get you started with ALEX. Podcast Treasury is a link where different podcasts are posted from schools about certain subjects. The ALEXville link is where the updates and different activities that are coming up associated with ALEX are located.